Mountainous Terrain (I)

Posted on Tue Apr 14th, 2020 @ 7:03pm by Lieutenant Nella Hawthorne & Lieutenant Junior Grade Amanda Turell
Edited on on Sat May 2nd, 2020 @ 11:43pm

Mission: S01E05 ConQstador
Location: Rigel VII - Ingarr Mountain Range

Lieutenant Eleanor Hawthorne, or 'Nella' as she preferred had served in Starfleet for several years now, but had risen to the rank of lieutenant and her dedication to duty had lead her to the USS Musashi-A, her most recent posting as Chief Communications Officer. Her academy education and years of service had prepared her for this. At least that was what she told herself when she was informed that she had been personally selected for the Rigel VII landing party. Great, the place where Captain Pike was ambushed and nearly killed she had, of course, thought to herself, an admirer of History, but a Communications major with a Geology minor it was no wonder she had been selected for this mission...this landing party. Of course, it did not help that after joining Starfleet, completing OTS, she took a few additional courses in Topography.

Nella was one of six Musashi crewmembers selected for the landing party, directly under the command of Lieutenant Commander Michael Essex, a man she had never worked with before, and it scuttlebutt was true, Essex had recently been demoted significantly from Admiral. What does one have to do to be demoted from Admiral to Lieutenant Commander? she had pondered in the transporter room before the dematerialization of her body began. It tingled at first, but then there was just nothing. Your vision started to get blurry and most said it was just a 'tickle' and 'lightheadedness' and then you ended up in different surroundings.

Yes, that was fairly accurate. She had used the transporter before...but it had been a while. Communications Officers were not usually anyone's prime choice in landing party members, but with the experimental 'Strategic Communications' being a blend of communications and intelligence personnel, her additional training pushed her up the desirable list. The transporter room of the USS Musashi-A was gone. In its place was a bright world and the ground beneath her rocky and elevated. The dizziness and disorientation of the transporter's effects gave her "jelly legs" as some of the newbies called it. She wobbled a stumbled, falling to her knees and inadvertently tore a small tear in her leggings. I hate these skirt uniforms she thought to herself.

"You alright there Lieutenant?" Amanda asked looking down at Nella "Not been through a transporter in a while?" She offered her good hand to help pull her up

Nella Hawthorne feeling affected by the transporter, struggled to get back up on her feet. "How did you know?" she replied with some witty sarcasm. "My ego might be bruised, but I'm alright. If anything, I'm a bit dizzy" she replied. It took her a few moments to get her wits about her again. When she looked around she could see the situation was a bit dire. "I think we have more serious problems than me being a little queasy."

"Transporter maintanence was a big part of my......" Amanda then looked where Nella was and saw the problem. "Where's the rest of the team?" She asked.

Nella nodded "That would be my question as well" replied the woman, her brunette hair tightly wrapped up into a 'beehive' the look of concern on her face was evident. She immediately flipped open her communicator "Hawthorne to Essex...Hawthorne to Essex, Commander?" but there was nothing but white noise of sorts. "I don't think our communicators are working. We need to stay close together" she said taking seniority of the trio.

"So where do you reckon we are in relation to where we were supposed to be?" Amanda asked looking around at the mountainous scenery.

Nella looked around for a moment. "Well, I would say we are on the Ingarr Mountain range which was where we...all six of us were supposed to be beamed down to. So, in a sense, we are where we are supposed to be, but clearly, not all of us were placed here. If we're lucky, the others made it safely and are not far from us. Commander Essex and I had determined the mountain range would be a good location to survey the kingdom and make our way down into it...maybe we can get a tricorder operating and compensate for whatever interference we may encounter?"

"Lets take a look." Amanda took the tricorder off her shoulder and powered it up. Immediately the same white noise that had came across the communicators came from the tricorder. "Come on now, don't be like that," She tapped at a few buttons before pulling a tool from her pocket and jamming it into the side of the tricorder, within a few seconds the noise stopped. "Better, now what's out there causing this?"

Thought I have seen everything thought Nella as she carefully approached Amanda's side. "You might not want to talk to inanimate objects, Lieutenant" commented Nella who flashed a look over at the blue-haired nurse. "Heard the nurse here came from a psychiatric facility before joining the Musashi...might have you sent there if you keep that up" teased the woman.

"It helps me think a lot of the time." Amanda replied smiling though as she recognised Nella was only teasing her, after a little more poking her tricorder beeped and a readout appeared. "hmmm, Colarium. That's not something you see everyday."

"gazuntite" replied Nella using her sharp and often quick wit. "Geology was never my thing. I barely passed the few courses I had to take and I stay clear of the sciences any chance I get, Lieutenant" the woman confessed. "What is 'Colarium' and does it provide us more questions, or does it help answer some of our questions?"

"Not my thing either but we engineers need to know a bit about some rocks and minerals that can be useful in our jobs." Amanda took several steps closer to a large cluster of rocks. "It's pretty rare so it hasn't seen much use but it's known for throwing off sensor readings and in large amounts acting like a scattering field, looks like theres decent deposits of it in the rocks around here."

Aeryn stepped out of the trees having heard the other ladies talking. "Is that why we all got thrown to hell and gone?" She asked tapping dirt from her boots.

"Well, it certainly wasn't a Kansas tornado" replied Nella looking around. She watched as Amanda took a few steps, and quickly reached out to grab the woman by the arm and pulled her close. Part of the ledge had begun to crumble. "Okay, I may not know rocks and minerals as well as I should, but something tells me we do not want to get too close to the edge of this mountainside. That looks like it might be some sort of shale?"

Amanda never felt the crumbling of the ground underneath her feet so when Nella grabbed her to pull her clear she was surprised at the sudden jolt though she was glad it was her good arm she grabbed her by. She shuddered at the thought of the pain if she'd pulled her bad arm like that.

"Sorry," said Nella reading some sort of expression on the woman's face, but not knowing what was going through her mind. "Just did not want to lose you. I have a pretty clean record of not having anyone die on my watch...it would be nice to keep it that way" added the woman.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to spoil your record." Amanda said then quickly turned towards a sound she'd heard in the distance now the crashing and smashing sounds of the crumbling rocks had subsided. "Can you hear that, an intermittent high pitched whining sound?"

Nella was quick to listen. "Yes!" she shouted. "It sounds like phaser fire and not too far away. It could be the others" she added. "We should head in that direction and investigate. If we're lucky, it will lead us to Essex and the others" said Nella.

"If it's them they must be in trouble." Amanda said, she hoped she was wrong but if they could hear phaser fire it was likely she was right.

Nella grabbed her phaser. "Phasers on stun, ladies" she said to her companions. "We may need to increase to a heavy stun so be prepared for that. Kalar are often hard to take down if that's what they've run into. Nurse Vinia, you may want to have the medical kit of yours ready. There's no telling what we're going to be walking into."

Amanda drew her phaser and checked it. "We might be able to get a better view from up there." She pointed to a small rise in the terrain.

"We just might" replied Nella. "They sound close. Maybe we can find an easy way to them?" she added as she carefully proceeded up the small rise in the terrain. She was extra careful knowing that this was not the most stable cliffside. Some sort of shale or shale like mineral which closer to the edge meant being on the brink of sudden death from a fall. She took a look around. Not too far away there was what looked like a small opening into potentially a cavern. Just beyond that on the other side, the arching of a phaser beam shot.

Nella quickly scurried down from the small rise. "I know where they are!" she shouted as she held her phaser in hand a started to head towards that opening in the rockface. "There's an opening up ahead. I think it's a cavern of some sort...and they look to be on the other side of it." she added quickly. "You two watch your step."

"Don't worry about me, worry about that cave being inhabited." Amanda said quickly catching up to Nella.

Nella slowed down a bit. "You're right...the honey is looking a little too sweet." she replied and waited for Amanda to catch up. "If the others were ambushed then they would be trying to seek shelter in the cave. It's tactically more defendable than being out in the open, but you have a point. They might be wandering into a trap."

Amanda scanned the area a little more. "There doesn't look to be any other way around that doesn't take us quite a way away from here, I think we'll have to risk it."

"I concur," replied Nella. She took point and lead the others in through the opening. "If we're lucky, we will end up finding the others before anyone or anything discovers us" she added. She had no time to fuss around with a tricorder. Nella was focused on holding her phaser and being ready to shoot at a moment's notice.

Keeping her eyes mostly on her tricorder Amanda followed close behind Nella. "The Colarium isn't so concentrated in here," She remarked. "No life signs so far."

"See what you can do about boosting the signal. I swear for a moment I heard voices ahead...maybe it's them. Maybe echoing off the interior of the cave." Nella added.

"Hold up a few seconds." Amanda said, she holstered her phaser to use both hands on her tricorder. "Come on, find them...." She mumbled in the tricorders direction. "I may have something, could be a pair of Andorian life signs about 60 metres ahead." She eventually said.

Nella was pleased to hear that. "Let's get a move on it and catch up to them. I don't want to lose them." she added picking up the speed of her brisk walk, phaser in hand.